City residents ‘frightened’ by open drug use

Residents of Turner’s Cross, Togher and surrounding areas on the southside of Cork city have said they feel intimidated by the increasing rate of open drug use on the streets in their areas.

Residents highlighted open drug use in areas such as Evergreen Road, Quaker Road, Tower Street, Deerpark and Capwell Road.

They said a number of the users were “aggressive and intimidating” and they feared for the safety of themselves and their children.

Aoife - a resident whose name has been changed at her request - said she regularly finds used syringes on the street around her home, and that the environment was dangerous for her children.

“We had thought that this would be somewhere that we could settle down and raise our family,” she said. “But it just keeps getting worse, and we’re actively looking now for somewhere else so we can move.”

She also said they did not have to go looking for drug use.

“Only last week I opened the curtains of my front room and there were two men outside smoking crack on the street,” she said.

The increase in open drug use on the streets of Togher has also been reported by local representatives.

Cllr Paudie Dineen, a resident of Togher, said he wrote to the local superintendent, but had not had any response as of yet.

“It seems that the High Visibility Policing in the city centre is working and has displaced the anti-social behaviour and drug use that was prevalent in the area. Now as a result it has been pushed into residential communities,” he said.

He encouraged residents to call gardaí when they had an issue to make sure that the area was seen as a priority for policing.

“This will ensure that the powers that be within An Garda Síochána will have the facts and the figures to hand and therefore hopefully make the resources available to tackle these ongoing daily issues,” he said.

Aoife said she regularly contacted gardaí but response times are slow, with the users regularly having moved on by the time gardaí respond.

“The gardaí have told me that there are community and plain clothes guards around, but it’s gotten to the point where I’m calling them around five times a week.

“Who can live like that?” she asked.